Alternate Maximum: Project X
by WordslingerMagician
Summary: Another Max in an alternate world full of not so typical magical beings and humans. The flock in this world are a mix matched gang of creatures with a mission. What kind of mission, you ask? Saving the world, of course. T for language and content.


_**Disclaimer/Claimer: I do not own the characters that belong to James Patterson (the flock ect..)However, the setting and plot and concepts and so on do belong to me and ONLY me and cannot be used by ANYONE else.**_

_Chapter 1_

_Maximum Security Override….Maximum Security Override…Maximum…_

The voice assisted alarm blared in the background of my mind…**Systems Activated…Operations Check… Involuntary Functions Activated...Sensory Applications Activated…**

I'm breathing for the first time. My eyes are suddenly open. Though I don't know it yet, I've been blind as a bat 'til now.

_Maximum Security…_My thoughts, at this point, aren't really thoughts…_Security Override…_All I know is color, sound, my sensory systems have just activated the applications that control sense of touch…._Maximum…_I have no memories…._Override. _Suddenly, I know what it feels like to be cold. I know the slickness of liquid against my skin.

**Cognitive Applications Check Complete…**

I feel the hard slab of the concrete under me. My lips are moving, saying something, repeating it over and over. It's the only thing I know. I'm being carried and I can feel the rush of hot air against my bare skin and the hands, so big, cradling me. I don't know sight. Everything's too blurry so soon. The hands, the cold, the slickness of my own skin, which had seen so numb before, now are fully sensitive to everything, absorbing touch like a dried up sponge. Everything is so dark and all I have is touch, the cold, and the sound of the alarm.

I have no idea where this person is taking me. I can't see their face, only blobs of gray and shadows. Then I hear them, people yelling off in the distance. Something I didn't know then but know when I think back, I can tell which screams are of the dyeing and which belong to the angry living. But still, no one tries to stop my carrier. Just as we're about to see light of day or darkness of night my brain shuts down and the world that had just barely began to open up for me, went black.

And they found me, huddled on a park bench at 3 a.m.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"Dude, I don't care how much that guy pays. We're never working with him again. Clean ups a bitch. End of story."

"Hey, I'm right there with ya. I mean, come on! If it says _Warning: Do Not Feed After Midnight! _It means DO NOT FEED AFTER MIDNIGHT! Such a dumbass. I'm thinking we should do some sort of screening process before we allow people services."

"Yeah, that would do great for our cash flow," says the first voice, sarcastically. "Background checks for the black-market, that's a brilliant idea." He stops in mid laugh and stares directly at me. I can see him, a huge blur, a blob. The blob was tall and burly. He was frozen in mid stride. And me, I was just staring, wide eyed and thoughtless, mumbling to myself my first words.

"Oh, shit. Ig…" His voice trailed off.

"What?" said the second voice, irritated. "Tell me what's going on, man."

They brought me to their apartment. I can assure you the ride there was unmemorable.

"Are you sure we should have brought her back here, Ig?"

"Gazzy, listen to me. She'd stick out like a sore thumb if we took her to the authorities. You picked it up yourself. Hell, I can _see_ it." Gazzy took a breath and struggled with the situation in his head.

"Yeah, well she sure doesn't _smell _right to me either. I just hope she doesn't come with any unwanted baggage, and you know exactly what kind I mean, the kind that could have some very unhappy people knocking down our door." Silly Gazzy. Of course, that's exactly when the trouble started.

"Holy crap, what's she doing?"

"I don't know, it like she's having a seizure or something!" I was, in a way. My mind was on fire and my body fought my brain from the shock.

**Cognitive Programming Implemented. **

And from that moment on, everything was clear. I saw two men. I knew one was the burly blob from the park. Big square shoulders and possibly overly tall with green eyes staring at me. The other man was almost as tall but slender in build and long in the face. And as I stared at their faces and they stared at me. I realized one very important fact. I was completely naked.

So I did what every girl would do. I screamed like hell and proceeded to throw at them whatever I could get my hands on, the heavier, the better. As I ripped the phone out of the wall and throw it at them, my hand grazed over something smooth and cold hanging on the wood paneled wall. I turned to grab it, thinking it was a possibly a heavy picture frame, something I could use to impale them with. Instead, I found myself looking at a large gun hanging from the wall on display. Perfect. I grabbed it with both hands, easily handling the weight of it in my grip.

"NO! Not my baby!" said Gazzy. I cocked the gun and aimed. All at once the air was sucked out of my lungs in a violent rush. I dropped the gun and it fell to the floor with a loud clank. The last thing I remember before the blackness set in was the look of smug satisfaction on Gazzy's face and then watching it fall into an anguished scowl as the gun fell to the floor, hard. Serves 'em right.

I woke up again at what felt like hours later. My throat was unbelievably sore, like I had been choked, but I could breathe without struggle, though not without pain.

"Here, drink this." I jumped at the sound of his voice. I knew he hadn't been sitting there at the end of the bed just seconds before. How had he moved so quickly? Fast enough that I couldn't even feel his presences until he was right next to me. Then I remember then that I wasn't wearing any clothes. I quickly grabbed the white bed sheets and wrapped them around me. I backed up against the headboard and scanned the room for exits. All this seemed very natural to me. Defense and offensive strategy were instinct. Even if I couldn't necessarily form full thoughts, I did all this without thinking. And it seemed that embarrassment was also an innate characteristic. "Don't worry. I can hear you, but I can't see you." I looked up at his face and for the first time I saw his eyes. He stared over my head, blinking. He was blind. "You thirsty or not?" he said. He waved the glass of water at me. Cubes of ice jiggled against the glass and the condensation made my mouth feel ten times as dry.

If I could I would go back in time and smack the crap out of myself for not checking the water for poison. But I guess we all have our moments of weakness. As you can probably already guess, jugged the water and almost choked on a cube of ice or two.

"Look who's up. It's Psycho Chick. There anything else of mine you wanna destroy?" said the man called Gazzy. He growled under his breath will he looked at me. If I could have formed a full thought, I would have been thinking about how the no clothes thing was really getting on my nerves.

"Put these on." He must of sensed my underline uneasiness. The blind one, the other one had called him Ig -My thoughts were coming together after all- handed me a shirt that looked like it was five times my size, and a pair of sweatpants. "She didn't destroy anything of yours, Gazzy. She just…banged it up a little." He tried hard to stifle a laugh.

"You want to know why they call me the Gasman, Psycho Chick," his voice got dangerously low. I had gotten the shirt on and hang off my like a dress. I was fumbling to get the sweat pants on. I caught his eye and backed up against the wall, sensing there was a window behind me. I didn't know how high we were up but my instincts would scream run anyway I could if I was in danger. "What you got earlier was a just a little taste." I was already pressed against the glass frame above me, ready to move.

"Enough." Ig's voice was stern. But even I could somehow feel that there was something else backing it up. Something with enough authority to make Gazzy's temper snuff out like the flame on a candle wick in a strong wind. "You're mad at nothing. She was only trying to defend herself. Stop whining about your precious toy." Gazzy, looking flattened, just sighed.

"You wouldn't be saying that if she had grabbed one of your _toys,_" he grumbled. "Hey, you think she has a name?" he asked abruptly.

"I don't imagine she does. Where she came from I doubt it was from somewhere that cared about naming her."

"Hey, you got a name, chick?" If I had been of sound mind, then I would have smashed his head in if he called me "chick" one more time. Instead, I said the first thing that came to mind,

"Maximum," I said in a perfect imitation of the alarm. In truth it was my first word. I had understood somewhat of what they had been saying up until then and had been relying on sheer instinct and impulse. But the word Maximum felt important. It belonged to me. So I said it again, and again. By the fourth time I was delighted to finally be saying something. When looking back on it, this is where I get the urge to slap myself for acting like an excited four year old. In fact, the guys have never let me off for this. Ever.

They were both laughing their brains out of their noises like squirted milk by then, watching me act like an idiot.

"That's right. You were mumbling something over and over when we found you," said Gazzy in between fits of laughter. "What was it? Maximum something…road…rod." he gave a laugh at that, thinking the crudeness of the name was funny.

"Nah, I'm sure it was something more like ride. Yeah, Maximum Ride, that's it."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how I got my name. And the whole time I was bouncing up and down like an idiot. But that's not even the half of it. I didn't even know it at the time, but no one the apartment building, on the block, not even in the whole city, was human, including me.

Can it get any weirder? Yes, it can and most definitely will.

**AN: This is mega short, but I felt I had to stop here to get the ball rolling and get people asking questions. The events take place in my own personal universe and the creatures and rules within it. This was meant as a fun experiment to put an alternate universe Max and flock in my own Universe. I promise to stay true to the characters as much as possible. Please review and come back for more. **


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